ANOTHER SUICIDE AT PETONE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 81, 30 December 1907, Page 8

ANOTHER SUICIDE AT PETONE.

A DOMESTIC TRAGEDY. WOMAN HANGS HERSELF IN A ROOM...A story of domestic ■ unhappinoss, culminating in suicide, was unfoldod at Potone yesterday afternoon, ,hel6re Mr. George Lambert, J.P., Deputy. Coroner, and a jury. On the previous evening' Mrs. Cecilia' Conolly, who resided'with :her;husbaiid and stepsou at Richmond Street, Potone, .had be'tjii found dead hanging from- the 'ceiling of the bathroom at her home". /Mr 6. Conoliy was well-known in Pctdne, and . her' husband; Herbert' Conoliy, is' a !soii'- of the late, Mr. Justice Conoliy. On December. 8, Conoliy left homo, and he has not sinco been heard .of; Mrs. Conoliy reported tho fact of his disappearance to the police, and asked "for;'/their, assistance in tracing him. Erom a-. statement ivliich -she then made, it appeared that' they parted.late one night. '.She asked him-to comb indoors and go to bed.- jjnd hci replied telling her to retire, and saving that he mould come later. She "might have;.thrown a.candlestick, at him " —she could not remember. He went away, and,did not.come'brick.. . . • . After •.Coiiclly's departure l ': a neighbour named Robert Carley, a storeman,.-was frequently at the houso. , ;He defecrib-id himself, in, his evide'nee, as. a friencT'of the late Mr. and Mrs, Conoliy. Ho also said that lie. had.,frequently seen ,;.Cfinolly" with a strango-young woman. Olio evening qt Mrs. Coilolly's, after her husband, had gone away, Carley faw a note lying'on the kitchen table. It siiid, "I cannot go oil. ,The ;stra,in .is too much." Ho did not. attach much anco to.it,.and lio left it there, .On Thursday last • Carley received .a . note-. from '''Mrs. Coiiolly in- the- following •'words: —"Come round. , Something, must:'done." ' He went, but. found no one .in. the houses except her step-son, Claude Coiiolly, 'a lad of , 15. Tlio deceased had told .tho ,boy that sho was going to, Wellington. •; Carldy thought, she must havc- goric to see. sonife " friends.'' *'As tho boy' was' alone,- tie .spent-a'.goqd -deal of time' at'.tho house during'the next ;two days. On Saturday- morning, 'having slept', at Conoliy.'s tho. previous night, . lie , wont to the bathroom, intending to -havo. a .bath,' but found'the door locked. . ."'Hp.;sadi3 no, further ■investigation at the time," ; l)jit,' whiie at business that day,'lie felt uncaSy at the thought of the locked bathroom door. lii the evening he returned, and,' (indiiig ytho door still locked, called in another .neighbour, Thomas Arthur Radcliffe., Thisi.' ivasvatJ' half-past sis. They manned to .spring; tho'. door so as to look. in. • They saw tlio body of Mrs. Conoliy suspended by .tho neck, from a beam which -was placed acro'ss. a niaiihole-in the ceiling. They ■ informed Constable Cos, who came and broke > open tlio door, and took cb'a'rgc.pf tho body. .'. The- jury, . having heard the. story from Carley, Radcliffo, and. the constable, found that, the deceased. committed, suicide by hanging.wlule temporarily' insane.■: - ".If, as appears to have boon the Mrs, Conoliy hanged■' herself ■' on' Thursday, 26th instl;; it is,, a'femarkahle,.circumstance' that, in; a small .tovrn like .Pet-one;, two_; married women, committed suicidfc by hanging oil'the sanie day:. The occurrerices 1 connected w'ith the-, death of Mrs.; Margaret Sharpo have already.Been. y , ... ~